How did you learn to apply makeup?
Practice, really! I leafed through Kevyn Aucoin books, but I didn’t have them with me when I actually started to wear makeup.
— Christine
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Trial and error would be the best way to explain how I learned. Just tried different techniques until I found some looks I liked. I am not really great at following tutorials.
I learned how to apply makeup, and make the most of my coloring, and features from. a National Bobbie Brown makeup artist! Way back What a talent he was.
Trial and lots of error. Oh the blending errors with concealer that I made. And the fact that until Fenty came along, shade ranges rarely extended far enough into the fair end of the spectrum for me all conspired to keep me away from makeup until I was over 25. This site helped me so much in choosing makeup with the precision of your definitions and your accurate rating system.
Mostly through Youtube, trial and error. I picked up a few books for tips also. I’m still learning!
I was obsessed with Bollywood as a teen. This was pre-social media 1990s, so when I was 15 years old, I used posters of my favorite actresses (Kajol, Mahima Chaudhary and Aishwarya Rai) as references for recreating their makeup looks. After that I taught myself by trial and error. I didn’t know Beauty YouTube existed until 2018, at the ripe old age of 33 🤣
I would try something new just before I washed my face at night. That removed any hesitation and made for good practice. And I paid attention to Lisa Eldridge and ignored the non-professionals.
Initially, from magazines. Later some lessons from a former beauty editor at Glamour who had a set up at (RIP) Henri Bendel as well as counter artists at Laura Mercier and Bobbi Brown. More recently, from You Tube. The face changes with age and the learning is lifelong.
I do agree it’s a lifelong learning. By my early 30s I lost some weight and become more athletic than in my 20s. I was used to shape a chubbier face and I was giving myself almost a skeleton face by continuing to shape my features the same.
And the more my hooded eyes drop, the less I use eyeliner.
That’s why I appreciate people like Wayne Goss, which show techniques that work on 40, 50 or 60 years old women.
You are so right, Lesley! The learning is lifelong as our skin condition, firmness and/or texture changes. In my case, my eyes have always been very hooded and puffed out, but so many other people never have this particular issue until later on. Our faces just keep changing over time, and keeping up with those changes can be challenging!
YouTube, trial and error… I did pick up the Bobbi Brown book but I feel like the information inside is kind of dated and wrong (not everybody has a yellow undertone).
I took a stage makeup class my freshman year of college after avoiding makeup previously. It was super fun and helpful! From there, a year or two of blundering practice and in about 2016, I discovered the makeup side of YouTube. 🙂
Livejournal, ha!
Just by doing it, a lot of mistakes have happened from which I learned. There were no YouTube makeup tutorials, I don’t remember teen magazines showing how to apply makeup, my mom and close friends didn’t wear makeup… so I did whatever I assumed I should do. 😅 Truth be told, color matching and actually blending eyeshadow come way later in my life.
It took me even more year to learn how to apply blush (from my first MAC makeup appointments) and do my brows (from a lady that waxed my brows at a Benefit brow bar).
A lifetime of evolutions! My cousin Debbie in California taught me how to apply eyeshadow properly for our very hooded eyes when I was 15 and my Mom and I were out there visiting. She also taught me a few other tips. But, almost everything else I learned through trial and error. In fact, many errors up to around 20. And a few even after! But I did become good enough to work as an MUA in the mid 80’s. Got a little bit lazy about the artistry end of things while my kids were growing up, unless we were going somewhere. Interest rekindled when they flew the coop, started looking into new ways to make the most out of my very limited mobile lid space using techniques like tightlining my upper tightline/waterline and applying my liquid (later gel, now back to liquid) winged liner to mainly my outer upper lashline and swept upwards more steeply than before by watching tutorials on YT or on beauty blogs like here on Temptalia.
Good old trial and error at first – I really had no idea as how eyeshadows could be placed on my hooded eyes, until I had my makeup done by a very friendly Elizabeth Arden makeup consultant, who showed me where to best place the different shades to show them off best. I discovered, through her, that where most would place their darkest shade was not working for me, but along the lash line. I have been following her advice ever since and it has worked well.
Plus I learnt a tremendous amount from reading this site too.
I remember as a little girl playing with my cousin to apply makeup on me and her. At the time there was not such a thing as makeup for kids, so I would scrape some colors from my color pencils with a sharp blade and applied on both of us. Of course as a teenager I had access to real makeup and played with all kinds of color combinations. As an adult, I thought I knew a lot about makeup until I started watching tutorials online. Then I start taking a lot of class with professionals in the area. Now a days, as a professional makeup artist, I take good laughs about that little girl using the color pencils for a completely different purpose.
When I was 16 I visited my older sister and best friend when she lived in NYC. We went to Germaine Monteil’s little store on Madison Avenue and had our makeup done. It was exciting and fun, then we went out to lunch and I felt terrific and that day I fell in love with what makeup could do. Nod to Prescriptives when they had a counter at Bergdorf Goodman and they matched our skin and made the foundation right in front of you (this was years after the Monteil adventure.). 🤍🤍🤍 to it all…memories.
It all started with a library book called A New You: The Art of Good Grooming by Emily Wilkens. It was geared towards young teens, and taught about diet, grooming, and how to apply makeup. Then there was the magazine section at the local library with Seventeen, Glamour, Mademoiselle, and eventually Vogue. I would look through them and study them as if I were studying for an exam.
A little knowledge came from watching my mother apply her cosmetics but the majority of my lessons came from reading fashion magazines. But no matter how many magazines and books I read or how many videos I watch, the cat eye remains an elusive skill for me.
I did stage makeup in high school and adapted those techniques to everyday street makeup over time. That was many decades ago and it still works for me.
Mostly trial and error. My mom taught me a little bit. Also, makeup tutorials or copying looks in teen magazines. No internet or YouTube in the early ’80s, unfortunately.
My mom’s eyeshadow trio had a little diagram on the back so I was leafing through her bathroom as a preteen, saw that, and tried it out. My mom caught me and took me to get some of my own makeup. The brand j.a.n.e. appealed to my 1991 sensibilities and they had little leaflets that showed how to apply makeup. I learned from that and seventeen magazine. Never figured out mascara until a Mary Kay party, though, because my mom wouldn’t let me try it until I got contacts.
YouTube has helped a lot with eye shadow. Before, when’re I tried a Smokey eye, I looked like I had been punched.
When!
My mom didn’t wear makeup apart from lipstick, my older sister wore mascara & eyeliner-she introduced me to the lash curler. I’m 62 yr old and no internet when I was a teen. I was very influenced by a famous makeup artist who did lots of covers for Cosmopolitan magazine: Way Bandy. He was incredible. I’d taken a cosmetology course in 1978 and for the makeup portion we focused a lot on ‘chiaroscuro’. In a nutshell light & shade. My makeup application has progressed over the years but my philosophy has always been enhancing what I’ve got and trying to downplay features I’m not crazy about. I don’t follow anyone on YouTube etc but I’ve appreciated Lisa Eldridge’s skills as well as Wayne Goss. Kevyn Aucoin was also very talented but gone way too soon.
Like so many, trial and error.
I looked at photos of film stars and models and tried to copy their makeup, I probably wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t scarily bac either.
Later I was given a class along with some others for buying makeup from YSL, so a YSL makeup artist went through everything from skin care to a full face of makeup. WE then got a nice discount from the brand. I think that’s when I got a bit more serious with my makeup.
I’ve had some make overs, some excellent some a bit less so. The best was from Dior and MAC.
I also read Kevyn Aucoins books and copied a lot of the looks. I still love those books so much.
Like someone else here I tried looks in the evening, before washing my face, didn’t really matter if I made a mess then. 🙂
As I’ve gotten older I’ve found that I’ve had to tweak a lot of things that used to work nicely as it all of a sudden looked all wrong, so I’m still learning, and I hope I’ll never stop learning and practicing.
My mom and my Teen Magazine subscription! They taught me the basics and the classics, all the new techniques and products I learn about now come from this site and various YouTubers I follow, since I barely read beauty magazines anymore due to lack of time.
My mom taught me some makeup tips, but she did not have hooded eyes like mine. I had one aunt who was a MUA for Prescriptives and another who sold Mary Kay, so I learned a bit from them. I too learned from trial and error, and I’d read the mags, with their makeup tips. I learned that my eye shape does not accommodate a beautiful bold wing. It just does not work on me, I look ridiculous. I also went out and bought Bobbi Brown’s Beauty book when it came out. I had just graduated high school, going into the real world. Her book taught me how to work with my eye shape and really helped me ‘properly grow’ my grown-up makeup routine. I still own that book. I have always been a lover and collector of makeup and all things related (I’ve got a problem lol) but when YouTube came out I was hooked. Makeup is my passion, I’m a creative person, and if I was not working in the medical field, I would probably be a makeup artist.
Before Wayne Goss, I was following things I remembered from Seventeen magazine and the product instructions. He ope the door to Kevyn Aucoin, Iman books, etc, and the rest is history ! 🙌🏽
Oh, and how could I forget, inspiration from Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and my mom (60’s cat eye).